Bean-snipper.



F. WEGNER.

BEAN SNIPPER.

APPLICATION FILED JAN-10,1914. 1,189,323. Patented July 4, 1916.

3 SHEETS-SHEET I.

F. WEGNER.

BEAN SNIPPER.

APPLICATION FILED JAN. l0. l9l4.

Patented July 4, 1916.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

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F. WEGNER.

BEAN SNlPPER.

APPLICATION FILED JAN. 10. 1914.

Patented July 4, 1916.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

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UNITED STATES PATENT oEEio EEED WEGNER, or FAIRPORT, NEW YORK, ASSIGNORTo GEORGE w. COBB, or MONTGLAIR, NEW JERSEY.

BEAN-SKIPPER.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented July 4, 1916.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRED WEGNER, of Fairport, in the county of Monroeand State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvementsin Bean-Snippers; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full,clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to theaccompanying drawings, forming a part of this specification, and to thereference-numerals marked thereon.

The invention relates to apparatus for performing trimming or cuttingoperations such as snipping the ends of string beans or analogous linesof work.

A prime object of the inventionis to provide an improved organizedmachine adapted to handle the beans rapidly and to trim them in therequired manner with precision and certainty.

A further object is to provide improved features of construction adaptedto promote etficient handling of the product so that the snippingoperation is always reliably performed and the mechanism capable of longperiods of service.

To these ends, in a preferred embodiment,

the invention consists in conveying mechanism, shown as of rotary spiralform adapted to carry the beans forward to the cutter with a positivemovement, while at the same time by the rotation of the spiral the beansare yieldingly pressed or chucked against a barrier so that they arealined for snipping at the right point by a suitably mounted cutter.

In accordance with a further feature of the invention I mount incooperative relation with these spiral conveying devices anotherconveyer for movement in timed relation thereto, containing pocketsadapted to receive the ends of the beansto be snipped and to hold themin immediate operative relation to the cutter, supporting them, asshown, at both sides of the cutter.

According to a still further feature of the invention two pairs ofspiral conveying elements are arranged and driven so asto move the beanscontinuously forward in the same direction transversely i. e. toward thecutters, but the first pair of spirals being adapted to move the beansendwise in one direction to aline the ends of the beans at one side inposition for one cutter, while theother pair of spirals are arranged tomove the beans endwise in the other direction to aline their other endsfor'snipping by the second V cutter.

Further features of the invention have to do with improved means forsupplying the beans to the spiral conveying elements, and

being acted on by the cutters.

The above and other objects and features of the invention will be betterunderstood from the following detailed description taken in connectionwith the accompanying drawings and thereafter pointed out in theappended claims. V

Referring to the drawings wherein like reference characters among theseveral figures indicate the same parts: Figure 1 is a longitudinalvertical section through a machine wherein my invention is embodied;Fig. 2 is a plan view of the machine; Fig. 3 is a plan view of certainof the operating parts with the parts removed for clearer showing; Fig.4 is a longitudinal vertical section on the line 4-4 of Fig. 3; Fig. 5is a transverse section on the line' 55 of Fig. 8; Fig. 6 is atransverse section on the line 66 of Fig. 3; Fig. 7 is a detail sideelevation of one of the links of a conveyer chain; Fig. 8 is a plan viewof the link shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 9 is an end view of the same link.

The beans are supplied from a hopper 1 to the endless conveyer 2 overwhich the hopper is positioned, said conveyer being mounted to operateover rolls 8, 4 journaled in suitable spaced relation on themachineframe-work 5, one of said rolls having a worm gear drivingconnection 6 to the prime drive shaft 7 of the machine which isjournaled in and extends lengthwise of the frame-work 5. havingjournaled therein an agitator consisting of a series of arms 8projecting radially from a shaft 9 journaled in the hopper and shown asdriven by a sprocket connection 10 from the shaft 7. The conveyer 2 isequipped with spaced apart transverse fins 11 to constitute receivingpockets for the beans, and the arms 8 revolve in planes parallel withsaid fins so that the beans are agitated by the action of said fins andalined to drop into the conveyer pockets, the receiving portion of theconveyer being shown as resting on, and supported by, a table formation12 so that this portion of the conveyer is held in proper relation tothe agitator, at the bottom of the hopper. The top i holding the beansstraight and alined, while The hopper l is shown as stretch of theconveyer 2 moves to the left, as indicated by the arrow in Fig. 1, andat the left hand end where it passes down around the roll 4 a guard 13is provided positioned to fit around the tops of the fins 11 so as tokeep the beans from dropping out. This guard extends around to a pointintermediate the lower stretch of the .conveyer where it ends at 15,uncovering the pockets and permitting the beans to drop down the passage16 onto a pair of screw or spiral conveyer elements 17, 18disposed-adjacent to each other and in parallelism, the screwsconstituting these elements being formed with deep grooves to receivethe beans and it being understood that these screws are spaced apart theproper distance so that the ends of the beans are supported on therespective screws. The spirals 17 18 restin semi-circular seats 19formed in a cross piece 20 of the frame work and they are carried onshafts 21, 22 driven by a gear train 23 from the prime drive shaft 7,the shaft 21 being shown as driven from the shaft 22 by an idler 2 1, sothat both spirals turn in the same direction. This direction of spiralmovement is such that the beans are moved endwise across the screws aswell as longitudinally of the screws until they come against a backingpiece or alining barrier 25, when further endwise movement is preventedand they then move transversely, or longitudinally of the screws, withtheir ends to be snipped chucked and kept pressed against the backingpiece 25 and thus held in alinement. As the beans are delivered to thisposition, the ends to be snipped are at the same time positioned inpockets 26 of an endless chain conveyer 27 mounted on spaced apart rolls28, 29. As best seen in Fig. 3 the pockets 26 are in register with thebean receiving grooves of the screw 17, 18 so that as the beans aremoved endwise by said screws they are positioned in said pockets; tofacilitate the entrance of the beans into said pockets the ribs of thechain links constituting the walls of said pockets are shown as beveledto an edge as at 30. The chain 27 is preferably moved in synchronismwith the screw movement by positioning the same so that the adjacentedge 30 of the chain links are engaged by the peripheries of the screwconvolutions which thus move the chain forward and insure the keeping ofits pockets in bean receiving alinement with the screws as described.The chain 27 has its links slitted to form a continuous slot 31extending down beneath the bottoms of the pockets 26 and afiordingclearness for a rotary cutter 32 shown as a thin disk extending downinto said slot. This cutter is mounted on the shaft 33 journaled in theframe work and is shown as driven by spiral gears 34 from the driveshaft 7. The slot'31 and cutter 32 are spaced from the backing plate 25a proper distance so that the correct amount will be snipped from theends of the beans as they rest in the pockets 26 with their ends heldagainst the plate 25. One end of the beans being thus snipped, as theyget to the ends of the screws 17 18 they drop onto another similar pairof conveyer screws 35, 36 positioned somewhat below the screws 17, 18and with their ends abutting against the ends of the screws 17, 18,-asshown in Figs. 3 and 4. The screws 35, 36 similarly have their outerends resting in semi-circular seats of support pieces 37 and they aredriven by shafts 38, 39 and gearing 4-0 from the drive shaft 7, the geartrain -10 being arranged to drive the screws 35, 36 in a directionopposite to that of the screws 17, 18 so.

that as the beans rest on these screws they are moved away from thebacking plate 25 toward and against another similar backing plate 11 atthe other side of the screws. A conveyer chain 42, similar to the chain27, is mounted at this side of the mechanism equipped with similarpockets and with a slot 13, similar to the slot 31, in which opcrates arotary cutter 44, similar to the cutter 32, and driven by spiral gearing45 from the shaft 7.

I prefer to provide means to insure the holding of the beans inoperative relation to the screws 17 18 as they rest thereon and toassist in straightening and alining the beans and to this end I show aseries of rollers 46 having hearings in vertical slots 47 so as to beslidable by gravity to rest on the tops of the screw convolutions andthus keep the beans in the grooves of said screws.

In Figs. 7, 8 and 9 I show a preferred form of the links for theconveyerchains 27 and 412. This link has a usual tongue 48 at one side fittinginto a slot 19 at the adjacent side of the next link and the pocketbottom 50 is rounded off at the receiving end, as at 51, to facilitatethe entrance of the beans. The front beveled edge of these links is alsoshown as specially rounded and spirally inclined as at 52 to correctlyengage with the spiral contour of the screw convolutions to be operatedthereby.

In use, the beans being placed in the hopper 1, are agitated by therevolving arms 8 and as they come into alinement with the pockets on theconveyer 2 they drop there into and are carried thereby around untilthey come to the discharge passage 16 where they drop down onto theconveying spirals 17, 18. By these spirals they are moved transverselywith a substantially positive action by the engagement of the spiralribs thereof, and at the same time they are given a frictional impulseendwise i. 6. across the spirals which causes them to enter the pockets26 of the conveyer 27 as it is moved in time with the spirals byengagement with the ribs thereof, the ends of the beans thus comingagainst barrier plate 25 to be alined thereby. The ends to be snippedthus project across the slots 31 and as the ends of the beans are thusheld in the pockets 26 supported on both sides of said slot they comeagainst the disk cutter 32 also guided and held alined in the slot 31 sothat the cutting operation is always performed with precision andcertainty. Thereupon the beans as they are farther advanced come to theends of the spirals 17, 18 and drop onto the spirals 35, 36 which,revolving in the opposite direction move the beans endwise in the otherdirection until they come into the pockets of the conveyer 42 at theother side of the mechanism to have their other ends snipped oif by thecutter 44 as they are continuously advanced transversely. Thegravityrolls 4C6 assist in holding the beans pressed into the grooves of thespirals, thus straightening them and keeping them pressed down as theyare operated on by the cutters.

I consider the described spiral conveyer mechanism whereby the sameoperative parts move the beans forward to the cutter and also move themendwise for alinement to be an important feature of invention and I alsoconsider the auxiliary conveyers shown as the chain conveyers 27 and 4:2arranged as described in cooperative relation to the spirals to be ofvalue and importance. I am aware that these features can be embodied inother specific forms than those shown, and I, therefore, desire thepresent embodiment to be considered as illustrative and not restrictiveand refer to the appended claims rather than to the foregoingdescription to indicate the scope of the invention.

I claim as my invention:

1. An apparatus of the character de scribed comprising two parallelhorizontally disposed revoluble screws having screw threads extending inthe same direction arranged to receive beans and to move themtransversely and endwise, a conveyer adapted to receive portions of thebeans while the latter are being moved, the conveyer being actuated byone of said screws, and a cutter for snipping the beans.

2. An apparatus of the character de scribed comprising a pair ofrevoluble screws disposed horizontally in juxtaposition, a conveyerarranged to be actuated by one of the screws having open ended pocketsmoving synchronously with said screws .and adapted to receive the endsof beans carried by the screws and a cutter for snipping the ends of thebeans cooperating with said pockets.

3. An apparatus of the character described comprising two pairs ofrevoluble screws disposed in parallel planes, one pair being arranged toreceive beans from the other, said pairs of Screws being arranged withtheir screw threads extending in different directions and each servingto move beans transversely in the same direction and alternately indifferent longitudinal directions and separate cutters for snipping thetwo ends of the beans.

4. In a bean snipper, the combination with two pairs of screw conveyersarranged to receive beans successively and rotating in directions tomove them bodily transversely and longitudinally alternately in oppositedirections, of separate pocket conveyers cooperating with said pairs ofscrews and arranged to receive the ends of the beans and cutting devicesarranged to operate on the beans in said pockets.

5.,In a bean snipper, the combination with a pair of screw conveyersarranged side by side and rotating in a direction to advance beansbodily transversely and longitudinally, of means cooperating with theends of the beans to sever them and a plurality of pressing rollersarranged transversely of the conveyer screws and acting to hold thebeans within the convolutions of the screw threads.

6. In a bean snipper, the combination with a pair. of screw conveyersarranged side by side and rotating in a direction to advance beansbodily transversely and longitudinally, of means cooperating with theends of the beans to sever them and a plurality of pressing rollersextending transversely of the screws and yieldingly supported.

FRED WEGNER. Witnesses ANNA P. VVEGNER, IVALTER F. \VEGNER.

copies of this pntent In! obtained for he cents each, by addressing the"Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. 0."

